This guide contains the most pertinent statistics from the vast information resource gathered by the federal government. Each section is broken down into additional subsections. For example, read about:
• Energy production and consumption by source, 1949-2007
• Fossil fuel production on federally-run land, 1980-2007
• Alternative-fueled vehicles on the road, 1995-2006
• Alternative fueling stations by state and type, 2008
• Projected world oil supply and use, 2006-2030

Allaby, author or editor of over 90 books on environmental science, has revised, updated, and reorganized this two volume set to reflect the latest science, with over 1400 entries, 350 illustrations, and 10 appendices. Looking for maps of ocean currents? Wonder why ice storms occur, when thermometers were invented, how wine harvest records help climatologists, or what in the world a cloud street is? Look no further.

Because this year’s Concord Reads book, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, focuses on eating locally, our first post on Ohrstrom library’s “Inspirations for Sustainable Living” display featured resources helpful for learning about the ethical, environmental, and health impact of food choices. The display also includes a diverse selection of books on global warming, from Bill McKibben’s activist handbook Fight Global Warming Now to Eric F. Lambin’s The Middle Path: Avoiding Environmental Catastrophe and Bjorn Lomborg’s Cool It: the Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. Are you concerned about the social justice impact of environmental issues? Check out Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came in To Being, and Why No One Saw It Coming.

For an overview of the scientific and governmental response as well as data on the social impact of global warming, explore a new reference book at Ohrstrom, Human Development Report 2007/2008, Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), by director and lead author Kevin Watkins. UNDP’s annual report measures the health, welfare, economic and physical security and well being of people in 175 UN member nations plus Hong Kong and the Palestinian Territories, as well as the status of international treaties on human rights, the environment, and labor. Each year, the report opens with an extensive analysis of a key international development issue, and this year’s focus is climate change and the responses, projected outcomes, and potential impact on human development around the world. Both cautionary and hopeful, this is a useful and fascinating read.

No time to pore over a book? Check out a film instead, such as Design e2 , a six part PBS series on green architecture narrated by Brad Pitt; or The 11th Hour , Leonardo Di Caprio’s film on earth’s human footprint. With so many sustainability resources at Ohrstrom library, you are bound to find something to intrigue and inform.

Concord Reads, a One Book One Community program, has partnered with area high schools and NHTI to hold discussions of the 2008 book, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Anne Stephenson of Clean Air-Cool Planet, a NH nonprofit focused on global warming, will be on campus tomorrow, October 9th, speaking at chapel and meeting with students. Anne will review the projected changes to the New Hampshire climate, and discuss the significance of institutional greenhouse gas reductions – like those undertaken by St. Paul’s. Students have a key role in those reductions, and Anne will discuss the ways in which independent school and college students across the country have reduced their institutional footprint, as well as reducing that of their families and communities.

Barbara Kingsolver is a longtime environmental advocate, and her latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle describes a year in which the author’s family chose to eat only what they could produce or purchase locally. Kingsolver’s skill as a storyteller makes the book a good read, and the ideas she explores are thought provoking. Her husband Steven, a scientist, adds informative essays on issues such as farm subsidies, agricultural pollution, and the impact of modern food production and distribution on global warming. Elder daughter Camille adds her own perspective on the family’s experiment including recipes for seasonal eating. Both the book and accompanying website are packed with resources for those who want to learn more.